1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus and a method for responding to an access request. More particularly, the present invention is used to accept an access request from a client terminal when an external storage is not operated.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, a digital composite machine, such as a multifunction printer, having a network printing function, a facsimile function, a copying function, etc. has been developed with more sophisticated functions. For example, one of the known digital composite machines has the function of acquiring a document via the Internet and printing the document. Many of the various functions are realized with various programs, and a nonvolatile storage having a certain level of capacity, e.g., a hard disk (HDD), is required as a unit for storing those programs.
In the above described digital composite machines, there is known a technique for, when a power consumption mode is shifted from a power saving mode (sleep mode) to an ordinary mode, reading control data (such as a main program), which is used to control an image forming apparatus, from a volatile storage unit (such as a SDRAM) differing from a nonvolatile storage unit (such as a HDD) (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-193652). The known technique enables high-speed return from the power saving mode to the ordinary mode.
Some network image forming apparatuses having an ordinary mode and a power saving mode (1W Sleep) incorporate a Web UI (remote UI) for confirming and managing the state and information of the image forming apparatus from a remote location.
In the Web UI providing a UI (User Interface) in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language), the HTML contents are stored in a HDD of the image forming apparatus. For that reason, the following problem occurs with the related art when the Web UI is used by a client PC. For information that can be acquired without activating the HDD, the image forming apparatus has to acquire the information by accessing the HDD and activating it each time the Web UI is used by the client PC. In other words, even if a user wants information that is not stored in the HDD of the related art image forming apparatus, the image forming apparatus is required to access the HDD and activate it each time the WEB UI is used by the client PC, because the HTML contents are stored in the HDD.
Accordingly, the image forming apparatus in the power saving mode is returned from the power saving mode to the ordinary mode. Further, the Web UI is in general used by a plurality of client PCs. In such a situation, when the image forming apparatus accepts all accesses from the plurality of client PCs as they are, it cannot maintain the power saving mode. This causes the problem that power consumption of the image forming apparatus is increased and the useful life of the HDD is shortened due to more frequent activation of the HDD.